Method of duplicating



Jan. l1, 1949.

A. L. ERICKSON METHOD OF DUPLICATING 2- Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed April 7, 1945 RSM .Nmlrrw Jan. 11, 1949. A. L. ERlcKsoN METHOD 0F DUPLICATINGA 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed April `7, 1945 Patentecl'Jan. 1l, 1949 METHOD OF DUPLICATING Andrew L. Erickson, CincinnatL'Ghio, assignor to Ditto, Incorporated, Chicago; Ill., a corporation of West Virginiav Application April 7. 1945, Serial N0. 587,039

4 Claims.

l My invention relates to methods of duplicating and has for its object the provision of an improved method whereby a plurality of unit cards may be gathered together into an assembly and be utilized in connection with a primary master y to duplicate thereon by the wet process or other available system of duplicating certain information s0 that one portion of the information contained upon the primary master may be duplicated upon each unit card, and unlike information may be duplicated from said same primary master to a plurality of the cards of the assembly.

In'practice the unit strip cards are gathered together into an assembly by means of a detachable fastening, the cards being arranged in stepped formation. The assembly is then utilized in connection with the master, and information from said master is imprinted upon the offset.

portion of each card. Thereupon the securing' means is detached so the cards again become unit strips and thereupon the unused data upon the master may be successively printed upon each one of said detached cards.

I will explain my invention more in detail by referring to the accompanying drawings in Referring to Fig. 1, I show a card assembly consisting of cards l0. Il, l2, I3, I4, l5, I6, Il, I8 and i9. These cards are all alike, and are all held together in any suitable manner by having separable strips 20 attched thereto, which strips are then glued together to form a card assembly. If desired, a similar strip 2| may be added to the righthand side of these cards. It will be noticed that these cards are in stepped relation, it being remembered that al1 cards are of the same width, reading from top to bottom of the illustration.

In accordance with my invention it is desired to provide one master which has general data thereon which is to be presently printed upon the upper portion of the cards, that is, above the 2 blank space under the line in which appear the words Quantityj Size, etc. This same master aso has specialized data generally different for cach card which is to be imprinted upon the offset portion. such as the offset portion 22 of each card. In order to bring this about I provde a primary master 23 such as shown in Fig.

2 in which the portion above the line 24 contains the general data which is to be presently transferred to each one of the cards of the assembly. This same master has a plurality of sections 25, each one of which sections has specialized data thereon, which specialized data as ageneral rule is for each one of the sections.

If now it is desired to transfer the material from the master to the assembly, the master 23 (Fig. 3) is superposed over the card assembly, which card assembly has been previously moistened. Thereupon the hectograph ink upon the rear of said primary master is transferred to the assembly. It will be noted that each one of the cards except the top card I0 is thereupon provided in its offset portion with one section of the specialized data so that each card except the top card has its oiiset portion iilled with the desired specialized data. The reason for not using the upper card during this step is due to the fact that the portion 26 of the primary master has no hectograph ink thereon, but has such space utilized by printing in large letters such words as Quantity, SFze, etc. thereon in non-copying ink, thus to aid the typist and prevent mistakes. The unit cards, however, are desirably of the width here shown.

Now after the card assembly has thus been imprinted wtih the specialized information, then the strip 20, and if used, the strip 2l, are torn away so that the card assembly is again transu formed into a series of unit strips each of the same width. 'I'hereupon the general data at the top of the master may be successively reproduced upon each one of the unit cards. The top card may be used for general informational purposes if desired in connection with the records of the particular transaction.

It will be seen that the master sheet 23 when superposed upon the card assembly as in Fig. 3 with the righthand edges of the master sheet and card assembly aligned, the lefthand edge of the master sheet is aligned with the righthand edge of the strip 2li. Now when the general information is imprinted upon the cards, the cards may also be each aligned with therighthand edge of the master sheet because as clearly shown in Figs. 1 and 2, the matter to be duplicated in the generaldata section of the master is offset to the right a greater distance than the corresponding space as shown in Fig. 1, this being more readily apparent also from an inspection of Figs. 3 and 4. In this manner proper aligning of both the assembly and the unit strips is brought about.

specialized data has been imprinted on the overlapped cards and these are separated and the master utilized for imprinting the general data on the separate cards, the space 2B will overlle the area on which specialized data has been previously imprinted on the cards. By having this inactive space or area overlying the portion of the card having the specialized data thereon it will not smudge that imprint nor make another imprint over it, but will instead protect it from any smudging or other damage, and thus this space serves as a block out portion on the master between the two copying portions thereof. The top card l will have the general `data,

imprinted thereon at the time the overlapped cards have the specialized data imprinted thereon. It will also be noted that the first card l0 o1'v the card assembly will not have anything im,` printed in the space reserved on the cards for specialized information, the alignment in this regard being clearly indicated in the side by side views in Figs. 1 and 2 respectively.

From what has been thus described, the nature of my invention will be clear to those skilled in the art, and it will also be apparent that modications may be made within the spirit of my invention. In the claims I use the word card to designate either cards or strips of paper. The invention is applicable to various processes of duplicating.

What I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

1. In the art of hectograph duplicating from reverse related copy whereby to transfer like and unlike copy from a primary master to a plurality of moistened copy card unit strips of like width, the steps of securing a plurality of such unit copy cards into a unitary card assembly with the cards in stepped relation, preparing a primary master having general data thereon at one portion thereof intended for transfer to a predetermined place on said cards and having thereon at a portion thereof spaced from said general data portion a distance atleast as great as the offset distance of said stepped cards a plurality of parallel sections of specialized data related to said general data whose distance from center line to center line corresponds to the oiset distance of said stepped cards, superposing said primary master against said moistened unitary card assembly with the said specialized data sections respectively Y in juxtaposition with the offset portions of all except the uppermost of said cards so that the specialized data sections are individually im?` 4 separate card upon which said specialized data had been imprinted.

2. In the art of hectograph duplicating from reverse related copy whereby to transfer like and unlike copy from a primary master to a plurality of molstened copy card unit strips of like width, the steps of securing a plurality of such unit copy cards into a unitary card assembly with the cards in stepped relation, preparing a primary master having general data thereon at one portion thereof intended for transfer to a predetermined place on said cards and having a plurality of parallel sections of specialized data related to said general data whose distance from center line to center line corresponds to the offset distance of said stepped cards, superposing said primary master against said moistened unitary card assembly with the said specialized data sections respectively in juxtaposition with the offset portions of all except the uppermost of said cards so that the specialized data sections are individually imprinted on different cards, then separating said cards from eachother by detaching said cards from their unitary mounting', and imprinting said 'general data separately upon the said predetermined place of the unimprinted portion of each separate card upon which specialized data had been imprinted, there being a section between the general data and the specialized data of said master corresponding to the width of a section of specialized data unprovided with transferable characters that aligns with the space upon which specialized data had been imprinted when said detached cards vare being imprinted with said general data.

3. In the art of hectograph duplicating from reverse related copy whereby to transfer like and unlike copy from a primary master to a plurality of moistened copy card unit strips of like width,

the steps of securing a plurality of such unit copy cards into a unitary card assembly with the cards I in stepped relation by means of a detachable strip longitudinally of said unitary card assembly, preparing a primary master having general data thereon at one portion thereof intended for transfer to a predetermined place on said cards and havingthereon at a portion thereof spaced from said general data portiona distance at least as great as the oifset distance of said stepped cards a plurality of parallel sections of specialized data related to said general data whose distance from center line to center line corresponds to the odset distance of said stepped cards, superposing said primary master against said 5 moistened unitary card assembly with said specialized data sections respectively in juxtaposition with the offset portions of all except the uppermost of said cards and with the general data receiving portions of all except the uppermost thereof covered by portions of other cards of said assembly so that the specialized data sections thereof only are individually imprinted on different cards, then separating said cards from each other by detaching said cards from their unitary mounting, and imprinting said general data separately upon said predetermined place of the unimprinted portion of each separate card upon which specialized data had been imprinted with the space between the general data and specialized data portions of said master aligning with the portions of vsaid cards on which said specialized data was imprinted.

4. In the art of hectograph duplicating from of moistened copy card unit strips of like width, the steps of securing a plurality of such unit copy cards into a unitary card assembly with the cards in stepped relation by means of a detachable strip longitudinally of said unitary card assembly, 5

preparing a primary master having general data thereon at one portion, thereof intended for transfer to a predetermined place on said cards and having thereon at a portion thereof spaced from said general data portion a distance atleast 10 as great as the oiiset distance oi.' said stepped cards a plurality of parallel sections of specialized i data related to said general data whose distance from center line to center line corresponds to the offset distance of said stepped cards, said general 1 vidually imprinted on different cards, then separating said cards from each other by detaching said cards from their unitary mounting. and imprinting said general data separately upon the said predetermined place of the unimprinted portion of each separate card upon which specialized data had been imprinted with the space between the general data and specialized data portions of said master aligning with the portions of said cards on which said specialized data was imprinted.

ANDREW L. ERICKSON.

REFERENCES CITED 5 `\The following references are of record in the le of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 2,215,995 l' Bellack Sept. 24, 1940 2,218,304 Storkv Oct. 15, 1940 2,237,363 Ritzerfeld Apr. 8, 1941 2,288,149 Williams June 30, 1942 2,338,058

Read Dec. 28, 1943 

